A very warm welcome to a new Flight-Report series! This one will be covering my summer vacation. Unfortunately, I didn't do any long haul travels this past summer, instead focusing on visiting parts of Europe that were still foreign to me. I was stationed in Sofia from July to early September, so after this series you'll know Sofia Airport Terminal 2 like the back of your hand :-)
TRIP INFORMATION
This series consists of 8 flights with 6 airlines on 4 types of aircraft passing through 7 airports. All flights were in Economy Class. The full routing can be seen below
Flight routing
- 1LH1706 - Economy - Munich → Sofia - Airbus A320
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
The entire routing can be seen on the map below, courtesy of the Great Circle Mapper:

As for the booking, I booked this flight as a United award for 8K miles, just under 24 hours before takeoff.
day of departure
I drove my rented car from Innsbruck, and around two hours later I was at Munich Airport.

Something was under construction in the courtyard, but there was a banner featuring a beautiful Lufthansa A350.

munich franz josef strauss airport - eddm/muc
The check-in was empty, and the very friendly agent said that because of my late booking, late arrival at the airport, and a fully booked flight, my seat would be assigned at the gate. Ugh. I got my boarding pass and headed off to security.

I was airside in under 5 minutes, and made my way to the Senator Lounge.

lufthansa senator lounge munich non-schengen
Luckily the lounge wasn't too crowded, and I managed to take a few pictures.


There was also a good selection of food. I took a Leberkäse (Bavarian/Austrian meat speciaity) and a focaccia pizza.

For dessert, I enjoyed waffles with chocolate sauce, the same ones I had in Frankfurt in April.

20 minutes before boarding, I headed to the gate.


At the gate, I got the bad news that I'd be in 19E, a middle seat. Oh well, at least it was a short flight during mostly dark conditions. Before boarding, I spotted for a little bit.
Lufthansa CityLine CRJ900 (D-ACKE 'Wernigerode') from Gdansk as LH1645.

Lufthansa A320 (D-AIPB 'Heidelberg') from St. Petersburg as LH2565.

Lufthansa A321 (D-AIDW) to Athens as LH1754.

Oman Air A330-200 (A40-DE) from Muscat as WY123.

Austrian A319 (OE-LDD 'Moscow') to Vienna as OS106.

South African A330-200 (ZS-SXY) to Johannesburg as SA265.

boarding + initial impressions
My ride to Sofia would be D-AIUQ, a 2016-built A320-214(WL).

Boarding commenced on time and I was one of the first to board.


Fuselage shot.

Welcome aboard your typical Lufthansa A320!

Good wingview… too bad I couldn't enjoy it :-(


My view for the flight was just this.

lufthansa 1706 - munich to sofia
Once the doors were closed, the captain added his welcome onboard and announced a flight time of 1:30. We pushed back from the gate and taxied to Runway 26L for our takeoff. The climbout was smooth and we slowly made our way towards the Balkans. Once we reached our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, the service began. I chose water as my drink.

snack service
I was surprised and disappointed when we were only given pretzels. I was used to this from my US domestic flying days, but in the other direction, LH serves a sandwich. I don't know what was up that day, but I wasn't happy. At least I ate in the lounge.


mid-flight
A look at the cabin.

I binge-watched The Big Bang Theory until we commenced our descent.

arrival in sofia
We landed in Sofia 3 minutes early, at 10:52 PM.

routing of lh1706

Thanks for reading!